My wife is currently in Physical Therapy for this same condition (Plantar Fasciitis). She hikes all the time and wore out her four year old Asolo hiking boots, but continued to wear them. The integrity of the boot was definitely gone...stiffness, support, etc.She's been in PT for 2 weeks now. 2 weeks to go. PT does ultrasound, E-stim and A-stim (sp??), which encourages a great deal of blood flow to the area, breaks down old scar tissue if there is any, encourages the growth of new scar tissue and helps the new scar tissue lay down more uniformly, and has home stretching and strengthening exercises she does faithfully.Bought her a pair of Keen Targhee II Low hikers as well this past weekend. She went for a two hour hike today without any pain whatsoever.So far, so good.

I'm doing the exact same things that your wife is doing. I'm in week 2 right now of physical therapy and it is helping somewhat. I am currently receiving ultra sound therapy to break down the old scar tissue. During the day, I roll a tennis ball on my weak foot in between the arch and in the morning when I awake, I roll a frozen water bottle on my foot. I may need to try some of those shoes out you mention. Right now I am playing disc golf with the Keen's made for disc golf and wearing new balance during the day with a doctor issued insoles. Have you heard of the new sketchers made to lift the heels?

Shoes are very important, we shouldn't skimp on them. I had some shoes that were really messing up my right foot, it was aching badly when I woke every morning, and I had to walk it off. I just had to throw those shoes away, and focus on proper comfort/support rather than style.

Damn, I hope I haven't actually torn my plantar fascia. I have never gone to have an MRI done though. I believe that I should go. I just finished my last treatment with the chriopractor doing ultra sound therapy. She told me to give it about two weeks and stay off of my feet as much as I can, and then come back to see her to talk.

love2hyzer wrote:Damn, I hope I haven't actually torn my plantar fascia. I have never gone to have an MRI done though. I believe that I should go. I just finished my last treatment with the chriopractor doing ultra sound therapy. She told me to give it about two weeks and stay off of my feet as much as I can, and then come back to see her to talk.

I'm sure you haven't torn it. If you did, you wouldn't be able to walk, it's one of the most painful things I've been through (including tearing my acl 3 times and 2 re-constructive surgeries on my knee.)

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. -Lou Holtz -

I've had plantar fasciitis (I'll call it PF) for about two weeks now. I was playing soccer in bad shoes while being 30 pounds overweight. That's pretty much a 100% match for causes. Amazingly, I didn't have an issue while playing disc golf. I've lost 15 pounds since I started three years ago. Anyhow it felt like I strained a muscle in the bottom of my foot. After the injury, I could still played for another 30 minutes. The next morning, I couldn't put any weight on my heel. By day 3, I could walk normally but couldn't run.

One week later I played disc golf for about 5 hours with nothing but an aching sensation by the time I was done. It made me wonder whether it was really PF. It seemed like I could walk, stand on my toes, and even play disc golf.

Then I played softball 10 days after the initial injury and hobbled around. That was ill advised because I aggravated the injury rounding third. I was getting around OK with a noticeable limp but when I tried to run there was no way. It's now about 4 days after that and I can walk with a normal motion, but I still feel stiffness on the bottom of my foot. I'm thinking I'm going to minimize time spent on my feet while icing and stretching. That's going to be difficult since at work I need to walk around a lot.

I've read that it can take 6 weeks to over 6 months to fully recover but most cases don't require any surgery.

4 weeks after the initial injury and almost 3 weeks after aggravating it, I feel much better. It seems like I can put some effort into strengthening and stretching. I can hop on one foot and do a light jog. I played two rounds of disc golf Friday and my foot did start to ache towards the end.